Sorry I hold the place here, and my poor Englisgh. I can't found any other place to talk about this incident.

1. Overview

Last night, strange censorship hide our replies to specific comment on their official Twitter account, and they wipe over 7 thread in beta forum with saying nothing. This strange situation started when FFVIX official Twitter account(JP) introduce one copy-affiliate weblog.

Imagine that someone steal your own or favorite fansite's whole article, and SE praise the copy-affiliate weblog. When you make an objection in FFXIV forum like that--- 'why do they praise the iｌｌegal copy, instead of original one?' this post let your account ban.

Imagine that someone post data mining information in his weblog or fansite forum. SE will ban his account. But once copy-affiliate site reproduce the same information, they start praising the site breaking NDA! Please be careful, if you point this inconsistency in forum, get banned.

I want to know and say 'why?', but afraid... some of my forum friends banned because of saying just 'why'. I want to know how Yoshi-P and Foxclon think and will do too, but they are absent. They join Gamescom, no one explain till beta forum close, official Twitter account keeps silent about that.

I want let you guys know this strange situation. Please read story below, and think or talk about, if you interested in.

it says 'Metenyo-san, Thank you for your long support! Please examine(or consider) when you have time after your first rush in FFXIV ARR! Yoshi-P sometimes check your site when he is busy.'

I have to give some annotation. (and I don't know 'examine/consider' means what for sure even now. maybe 'please restart'...)

This comment is official, or personal repliy to the popular affiliate weblog called 'Metenyo'. Metenyo said he will quite the site, not being enough profit compared with comsuming work, and want to focus on just playing FFXIV. @FF_XIV_JP raised link, and said hi to the fansite for the first time as official account, it will happen...but this tweet sounds strange for some people.

Metenyo was known as iｌｌegal copy or selection site of 2ch's FFXI/FFXIV board, called 'Nejitsu'(netgame on the spot broadcast board). so 'Yoshi-P check your site when he is busy' means 'Yoshi-P check your site for glance when he was too busy to read Nejitsu directly.'

People replied 'this site is not adequate for the first FFXIV official reccomend site...''SE, please be careful' in several hours, after getting some doubt, they hide replies to this comment.

Some people post their question about this tweet on FFXIV beta forum, but moderator wiped relevant thread instantly. This was really unusual action. no warning, no explanation, no thread close---they did just wipe all with no traces and log. After 3 thread wiped, they started ban people who post about this topic. At the last moment of cleanup, they banned people of most polite and consistent post.

Now people in FFXIV beta JPN forum get understand that----some words may work as suicidal instant-kill action.

3. Why people have doubt about that site?----#1 doubt about copy-affiliate site

One of problems is that Metenyo is known as iｌｌegal copy or selection site of 2ch's FFXI/XIV board, called 'Nejitsu'(netgame on the spot broadcast board). Nejitsu people hate Metenyo's plagiarism without notice and arbitrary modification. They often write'Mete-kin'(Metenyo, reproduction prohibited!) in their thread or pict, but Metenyo ignored that for a long time.

Another problem about Nejitsu' copy-affilate site is to the FFXI's past. One copy-affilate site raise spiteful post modificated from Nejitsu's theread reported Vana Feta 2012. People delightfully reported original meal sold in this event(based on FFXI's in-game recipe, Dhalmel Stew made from camel meat!) , but copy-affilate site stealed some post and titled 'tricky expensive meal in vana festa 2012 and its poor contains'. From this trouble, some of MMO-FF fan start to doubt that copy-affiliate site do anything--- even in outrageous way---for getting mega-view.

Why did @FF_XIV_JP thank copy-affiliate site as if 'their first recommend fansite'? Instead of other great site contains original article and their own forum? We know that Yoshi-P reads 2ch and Nejitsu, like to quote some Nejitsu-meme in his game(JPN ver. you know). But there is no reason why @FF_XIV_JP thank copy-affiliate site.

*On the other side, some people hate 2ch itself. They don't like 2ch-copy-affiliate weblog either.

4. Why people have doubt about that site?----#2 officiale rule about NDA and data mining

Foxclon(Toshio Murouchi, one of FFXIV community rep staff) explained data mining is prohibit in FFXIV. He boldly warned that post lead(contains link or hint) peple to data mining information causes ban. About NDA matter, it is under the same strict rule.

But, this time, @FF_XIV_JP lead follower to Metenyo contains NDA breaking/data mining information with link. Some people point this inconsistency by their replies. Metenyo-fan say he had removed NDA breaking/data mining information from his site, but it remains till now.

How can @FF_XIV_JP thank and suggest restart that NDA breaking site? With keeping articles that they ask wipe from their site?

In fact, main problem of copy-affiliate weblog is this evasion of responsibility. They reproduce articles from other site, and once articles cause some trouble, answer like this 'Duties or responsibilities belong to someone who post in original site, I just reproduce that.' Hiroyuki(Hiroyuki Nishimura, known as 2ch founder, special guest of FFXIV liveletter in niconico) warned this point in the past.

5.That is all of my story. In new official FFXIV forum, you can see JPN forum people delightfully talking. But, please know that some people are enough scared at 'hidden rule' to say nothing.

Basically something about a website that posted some information and people were talking about it on Twitter and on the Beta forums and the moderators deleted it and then started banning people who started talking about it. It sounds like there was a website involved that was stealing someone else's work and posting it for their own and Square Enix considered them an affiliate "fan site." So when people started talking about it, people started getting banned. o_o

He also is warning us to be careful to follow the rules in the official forums because they are banning in a heart beat. o_o

1st reaction: Hmmmm. 2nd reaction: What the **** is this all about? 3rd reaction: How am I supposed to verify the legitimacy of those claims? 4th reaction: Who cares? 5th reaction: Gimme back those minutes!

I think there is something in there about posting links to other sites on the forums can get you banned from the Official Forums. Ahhh. Well, I've decided to not use the Official forums. It is nuts over there.

A low level fan site broke the NDA, they also posted some interesting info about mining and about cooking certain meals. A high level fan site did a copy and paste job on all of that content. In one of the copied articles the high level (affiliate) fan site made a passive aggressive jab at the low level fan site.

Poster and potster's friends cried plagiarism in the official forums and their threads were not locked, they were deleted. When they asked what was up with that, they were banned. chocobolove2013 didn't get banned, as he didn't create another post on the subject, but wanted to talk about the situation with someone so he came here.

My response.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If chocobolove2013 runs the less frequented fan site, I'm sorry people are ripping you off and not giving you credit. I'm also sorry that you aren't getting the same treatment. But I think you should also take into perspective the following: SE owns their forum and it isn't a fair place, the affiliate website has a very different relationship with SE than you or your website does.

While free speech is grand, and I'd never nuke a thread in a forum, some people want to create spaces where speech is restricted, and that's okay too. If they don't want you to talk about their hypocrisy or how one of their affiliate websites did you wrong on the message board they pay for and run, then that's their right. Their property rights are more important than your free speech rights.

Really, your speech isn't impinged upon because you can still come to this forum and talk about it, and you can still post about it on your own website.

It sucks that they didn't address accusations of plagiarism, especially if they are true, but they have the right to remain silent and keep those accusations out of the forums they own.

It sucks that you and your friends got banned. But there is some onus on you to read between the lines, if a thread completely vanishes, it's probably a taboo subject, and best to be avoided. If you really want to know what's going on, you need to private message an admin. It's innapropriate to create another thread after you've seen one vanish, let alone three.

Thank you for the warning about posting links to other websites and pointing out hypocrisy and bad policy on their own forums. I will avoid that in the future.

On a side note, will you link us directly to your website, or try to explain the trick you found in mining? It sounds cool. I suspect you're one of the better fans of the game. You clearly have a lot of passion.

While i dont at all agree with banning people over pointing out that information was directly taken from another website and put on an "official" fansite, it's something that happens all the time and people really shouldnt get upset about it.

If you thought all the information on spells, abilities and what not on for instance Final Fantasy XI found on, just to name a few, ZAM here, FFXIclopedia or even the BGwiki werent all direct copies of each other, then you must be pretty naive. Someone would find something out, and would post it on for instance one of those websites, if not a japanese website, and other users would take that information and paste it on the other websites till they're all generally saying the same thing.

I'm sorry you did a lot of hard work for some exclusive information, and i'm sorry you and your friends got punished for breaking the NDA and the "official" fansite you mentioned did not, but these things happen. You're just going to have to move on and know that SE favors some websites over others and overlooks whatever bad things they do a little more often than for a small website.

While i dont at all agree with banning people over pointing out that information was directly taken from another website and put on an "official" fansite, it's something that happens all the time and people really shouldnt get upset about it.

If you thought all the information on spells, abilities and what not on for instance Final Fantasy XI found on, just to name a few, ZAM here, FFXIclopedia or even the BGwiki werent all direct copies of each other, then you must be pretty naive. Someone would find something out, and would post it on for instance one of those websites, if not a japanese website, and other users would take that information and paste it on the other websites till they're all generally saying the same thing.

I'm sorry you did a lot of hard work for some exclusive information, and i'm sorry you and your friends got punished for breaking the NDA and the "official" fansite you mentioned did not, but these things happen. You're just going to have to move on and know that SE favors some websites over others and overlooks whatever bad things they do a little more often than for a small website.

Surely you recognize that reposting information from another source and claiming that work as your own are not the same thing?

____________________________

svlyons wrote:

If random outcomes aren't acceptable to you, then don't play with random people.

It sounds as though he is saying that Metenyo is known for reposting information and deliberately modifying it on ly slightly and claiming it as original. His site was still not very popular though and about to go under. Someone at SE was obviously a reader of Metenyo and decided they would post on their official Twitter site that he should keep going with the site. This, in effect, was a recommendation from SE and most likely will cause a boatload of hits on Metenyo.

When Nejitsu, from whom Metenyo frequently takes its information from, saw this, they were rightfully annoyed. Why should Metenyo get the publicity for someone else's work? However, any post inquiring into this was modded and eventually people were banned.

It seems fair to speculate that there was some serious favoritism at play and possibly a personal connection. I don't see anything positive resulting in fighting it though.

Sorry I hold the place here, and my poor Englisgh. I can't found any other place to talk about this incident.

Thanks for taking the time to post and talk about this here. There's a lot of information and it must not have been easy to translate it all into English.

SE is a large company that's split into various interests. Sometimes different departments will impose inconsistent policies since each day-to-day incident may invoke a different concern among the various department heads. So, the legal department might have a different understanding of the implications of one user's actions than the developers, or the publishers, or the community administrators do, making SE's reaction as a whole seem schizophrenic.